The 7 best TED Talks for Investors

Dan Pink explains the power of intrinsic motivation and why extrinsic motivators could even do harm to your businesses! He argues that there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does – Watch this talk to know which rewards you should choose to motivate your founders for the right task.

2. Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work

Can happiness really inspire us to be more productive? We believe we should work hard in order to be happy, but could we think about things the other way around? In this fast-moving and very funny talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues exactly that.

3. Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend

It comes with your industry that schedules are always full. How can we change our minds towards stress? And does it even matter? Kelly McGonigal argues in this talk, that your attitude towards stress even determines how old you will get. So you should definitely learn how to make stress your friend!

4. Bill Gross: The single biggest reason why startups suceed

Bill Gross has founded a lot of startups, and incubated many others. Eventually he got interested in why some succeeded and others failed. So he gathered information about hundreds of companies, his own and other people’s, and ranked each company on five key factors. He found one factor that stands out from the others. The answer surprised even him and he shares his findings with you in this talk.

5. Mariana Mazzucato: Government – investor, risk-taker, innovator

After attending a talk of the Italian economist at my university i got interested in her work. Amongst others, she tries to answer the question on why there are no European Googles. Is America just the better country to found? Why doesn’t the government just get out of the way and let the private sector – the “real revolutionaries” – innovate? Mariana Mazzucato thinks that this is exactly the wrong approach. In an energetic talk, she shows how the state is really one of the most exciting risk-takers and market-shapers.

For the last videos I asked myself: Can I really upload a blog about the most important topics for investors without touching upon the topics blockchain, crypto-currency and artificial intelligence and still look at myself in the mirror? Of course not, so here they are:

This is a video for all of you who are still not sure if they entirely understood this complicated topic. The blockchain is about to change everything. In this explainer of the complex technology, Bettina Warburg describes how the blockchain will eliminate the need for centralized institutions like banks or governments to facilitate trade, evolving age-old models of commerce and finance into something far more interesting: a distributed, transparent, autonomous system for exchanging value. Who wants to go deeper after that video, there is an excellent Blogchain Basics series on trendingtopics.at.

7. Nick Bostrom: What happens when our computers get smarter than we are?

Next hot topic: Artificial intelligence. It gets smarter and smarter – within this century, research suggests, a computer AI could be as “smart” as a human being. And then, says Nick Bostrom, it will overtake us: “Machine intelligence is the last invention that humanity will ever need to make.” A philosopher and technologist himself, Bostrom asks you to think hard about the world we’re building right now, driven by thinking machines. Will our smart machines help to preserve humanity and our values – or will they have values of their own?

Enjoy the talks and let us know how it was to outsmart your peers your next discussions 😉